是你自己挑的颜色

Come, come, come, sweetheart, come over here. Come and sit on Matron's lap.

Nanny, I'm sleepy, I want to go to sleep.

Sleep — I'll let you go in a moment. First help Matron finish one little task, all right?

Look at this box.

Every child in our home comes to this room once, and eats a piece of candy like this.

Once you've eaten this candy, only then will you have food.

Here — choose a colour yourself.

I like the pink one.

Good.

Remember, you chose it yourself.

These different colours stand for different parts of your body.

You chose it yourself, so it counts as given willingly.

Pink is one leg.

My leg? Nanny, I don't want the pink one, I'll change.

Once chosen, you can't change.

Matron will let you find out right now how well you can still eat with one leg gone.

Just the same, not changed at all. It's you who've changed, Miss — a great lady now.

Is that hole in the back wall still there?

In those days I crawled out through that hole.

That was years ago. You'll have no use for it now.

I'll have no use for it. The children inside still will.

Who's there? You... you're... it can't be, you died long ago!

Nanny.

A vengeful ghost, come for my life! You've come back for my life!

Feel my hand. I'm warm. Since when are ghosts warm?

I'm alive. But do you remember Xiaolan?

Xiao... Xiaolan...

You can't remember. No wonder — there's too much blood on your hands.

So the records of every orphan, year by year, should be right here.

Why are you here?

She isn't dead yet.

What?

When I came in, she was still breathing. You didn't know?

You were too slow. The Huo men are downstairs, they could come up any moment. What do you plan to do?

You think I came unprepared?

Hey — raining this hard, this late, and you're not upstairs in bed. What are you doing here?

We're practising singing.

In the daytime Matron said we don't sing well enough, said the great gentlemen don't like it, and told us to practise more.

All right, all right, I'm just doing my round, I'll be off in a moment.

Sir, would you listen to us then?

Does sir think we sing badly too?

...No, that's not it. I have business.

Then sir, let us sing you one.

We learned this foreign language specially. Matron said the great gentlemen would be sure to like it.

I didn't expect this lot to be so quick-witted.

They sang it through, and through again. The two upstairs gained that time over and over.

All right, that's enough for today. All of you upstairs to bed.

Do you all sleep on the second floor?

Ren Susu.

There's no such person here.

You go about under the name of my elder brother's betrothed, doing these things.

Tonight — your hands aren't clean, and neither are mine.

Neither of us has any reason to talk and burn ourselves.

No.

Back at the orphanage — if that old woman had crawled out and called for help, and you were trapped inside, what then?

That's still none of your business.

There's an iron threshold at the door. She couldn't get over it. It was raining outside.

Even granting everything — I am your elder brother's betrothed.

Whatever I do, only he has the standing to question me.

You don't have the standing.

Whether I do or not is not yours to decide.

Three years ago, she was still called Susu.

Susu, drink some water first. Slowly, don't choke.

Xiaolan, I can't eat.

One more bite. How will you mend if you don't eat? Slowly, don't choke.

That was the place they grew up in — until the Huo family came to the door.

Still lying there? Get up.

Nanny, she's ill! She's really ill!

Ill or not, get up. The Huo family have chosen you — it's your good fortune.

She can't get up!

If she doesn't go, who goes? Who earns the money?

I'll go. Nanny, I'll go.

I can sing, and I can dance. Let me go.

What daydream are you having?

Nanny, I'll go.

Susu burned with fever for three days.

When she woke, it was Xiaoqing who told her: Xiaolan went to the Huo house in your place.

From that day on, Xiaolan never came back.

Nanny Sun is dead. Every paper in the city is writing about it.

That's exactly what I wanted.

I've never worked it out. Doing it this loudly — what good does it do us?

The case of Nanny Sun's disappearance — the police station and the press are both watching it closely.

Tell me: would the Huo family dare touch the orphanage children now?

They'll have to hold those children up like treasures instead.

What the Huo family trades in has always been open only to the powerful and the rich. Start with the buyers and you won't go wrong.

Where is the ledger?

A few days ago the aeroplane at the opening ceremony failed — the flying school calls it a mechanical fault. I call it someone's hand.

And now the matron is gone as well.

Put those two together and I'm afraid someone is coming for the Huo family.

I'll send men to the orphanage at once to find out who was there last night.

Wait. Don't only question the grown-ups. Sometimes the children know more.

If you've nothing on, come to the opera with me.

I'm going back. I'm to try the wedding clothes with Qingyu.

Qingyu... and Murong Qingyi? Is your heart for revenge really so fixed, never once shaken?

My business. Don't drag him into it.

He keeps his mouth shut, and that's the best state for him. You know me — I settle old accounts, I don't walk back down old roads.

No need to wait any longer. My brother is tied up with urgent business today, so the clothes can't be fitted.

Second young master, it's only that these come in several fabrics, all shipped from France.

If it isn't settled today, I'm afraid there won't be time.

I see the second young master is much of a build with the headmaster.

Might you try them in the headmaster's place?

What does my sister-in-law think?

Then I'll trouble the second young master.

But I'm not the groom. I don't want to try them.

The wedding is close.

Even if the second young master won't grant me this favour, surely he doesn't want our wedding held up by so small a thing?

Miss Fang can't be bothered with me as a rule. How is it she needs me today, and still so high and mighty?

Then let me put it another way. Your spending this month — your sister-in-law will reimburse it.

Second young master, this set the headmaster chose himself.

Miss Fang is a Nanyang shipping king's daughter. This one is far too conservative. It doesn't look good.

I want that one.

She watched him from beginning to end, and never said a word.